Surveys indicated that about 30 percent of all citizens were using public transport frequently, while the remaining 70 percent rarely used public transport and were not familiar with networks, schedules and tickets.
The BOB ticket, designed by the public transport operator BSAG and the Bremen transport association VBN, is a chipcard aimed at non-frequent public transport passengers. It allows customers easy access to public transport without the need for prepaid tickets or cash. The passenger uses public transport and pays later, making immediate savings via the built-in best-price function.
Having registered with the system, the customer books in the destination and number of passengers on entering the bus or tram. This information is stored on the registered smart card and transferred to the main database for calculating the monthly bill. Passengers making single trips are charged as if they were using a ticket from a discounted book of 10 prepaid tickets, while those making several journeys a day are billed for a cheaper one-day ticket only.